


A Cottage in the Country (White Noise)

by Emrome



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Military, Teen Angst, emotion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emrome/pseuds/Emrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Moriarty's cottage in the country always proved to be quiet, but once fate had spoken, all he heard was white noise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cottage in the Country (White Noise)

**Author's Note:**

> Another swift work that I really hope you enjoy!

James Moriarty was brilliant, vicious, and wicked, but shy, and who knew that better than Sebastian Moran. A tall, blonde boy whose hair was kissed by the sun and skin was kissed by fists. The day Sebastian stood up for Moriarty in school, causing chaos and suspensions all around, was the day Jim fell prey to the intrigue of Moran.   
After few short months, Sebastian fell in love with the boy who had eyes deeper than a black hole who held more secrets than he’d like to figure out. Jim, on the other hand, was in love from that moment, but refused to show it. Not even when they drank on Jim’s roof did he utter the love he had for Sebastian, though Sebastian would only say it when he was ten sheets into the wind.

Late May held a special moment for Jim and Sebastian. The month marked a year of them being together, and while neither were romantic, they did celebrate. That late May was chaos, being Jim bought train tickets to his family’s cottage in the country and upon packing for the trip, he got a letter. Rushing to Sebastian’s house, he caught him and his father in what could most safely described as a heated argument.  
Escaping swiftly with a borrowed coat, Jim wiped away the blood off of Sebastian’s face in a small train car for two. He sighed doing so, Sebastian hissing at the alcohol pads and ointment Jim now kept for what he pretended was him not caring about Sebastian.  
That night, at the cottage, Jim showed the letter to Sebastian and upon being accepted to the most prestigious university money could buy and brilliance could get you into, Sebastian and Jim made love in the moonlight When Sebastian admitted his love for Jim, they went at it, hungry for skin and love over again.  
Afterwards, Jim laid his head on Sebastian’s toned arm and mumbled about happiness while Seb smoked a cigarette in the twinkling of the night.  
“Seb,” Jim pondered softly, “what will you do now that I will be at Uni? Will you go too?” Jim had known that Seb wouldn’t go to university, and they’d spoken of future plans before.  
As Seb inhaled a long drag of his cigarette, he became unnervingly quiet for Jim’s taste, the crackling of stolen tobacco burning loud in Jim’s ears. Sebastian’s exhale seemed hours long, the air felt thick and heavy as he stood up, stubbing out the rollie on his boots. Sebastian paced in the moonlight, his muscles brilliant, his scars and wounds dark in this light, like deep purple lines of smoke on his peachy skin. Pulling on a shirt and trousers, Sebastian looked at Jim, running a hand through his hair. “I’m leaving next week, Jim. My father drafted me in.”  
At those words, Jim’s thoughts sounded so loud, as if they were tormenting him, as if they were a plane’s engine stalling and spiraling miles to the earth. The crash, he begged mentally, crash now, give me something to feel real. Jim’s eyes followed Sebastian as his mouth moved, words sounding like white noise. Drafted, he breathed.  
Jim pounced on Seb, a fit of rage blinding him as he punched and clawed at the love of his life. He beat against Seb, and while he could feel the bones cracking under him, Sebastian’s blood coating his hands, his voice going hoarse from screaming, and even tears blinding his eyes, nothing could stop him from trying to feel something that didn’t feel like a lie. And while Sebastian let Jim knock the anger into him and release it, Jim never felt better, not even as he left to go home, crumpling his acceptance letter and leaving Sebastian.  
It was too late when Jim finally came to his senses. Sebastian had been gone for three days by then, and when Jim arrived at the Moran home to ask for Sebastian’s forgiveness, he instead blew away Sebastian’s father for all the moments he hit, stabbed, and hurt his Sebastian, but especially for breaking his heart and letting him go.  
Jim fled to University after his parents cleaned up the murder and agreed to keep their son in therapy, which Jim instead bribed the therapist and spent those sessions staring into the heavens and begging for Sebastian back.   
Four years later, and after graduating from uni, Jim finally repressed the memories, forgetting anything that had to do with Moran, unless of course he looked into the sky or saw some blood, in which Jim would breakdown in the late mornings once again.  
It was four years later when Jim received a letter from the Military Services addressed as important. Walking home from a cafe down the street from his flat, he opened the peculiar coloured envelope and his world crashed down once more. As if he had never left the cottage, like he’d just heard the last words Sebastian ever spoke to him again, Jim could only hear white noise.

To Whom it May Concern,   
We are to inform you that on the list of Colonel Sebastian Moran’s papers of important contacts, you were placed by the Colonel himself to be informed on impactful life situations. We are to, regretfully, inform you that Colonel Sebastian Moran is deceased. Enclosed is an address to collect his belongings, whatever may remain. Sincerest apologies.

Words never stabbed Jim like that envelope could. Escaping would be Jim’s only survival, or killing, which both were quite clear options. Upon going to the war office to pick up whatever was left of his best friend and love of his life, Jim packed his own things and got on a train to the countryside. 

Accompanying him on the longest ride of his life was Sebastian’s dog tags that hung dutifully around Jim’s neck, all the paperwork forged by Mr. Moran except the emergency contacts which Sebastian’s scratched handwriting only wrote Jim’s details, and finally, the coat Jim had purchased the month before Sebastian had left draped about Jim’s shoulders. One photo of them had been dog eared, sun damaged, and worn, little folds making the picture look vintage with the scratchiest handwriting with the words, “whom I always will love.”  
It was at the cottage Jim saw the home look like it was four years earlier. The home held the old memories of their love, the pressed and wrinkled bed sheets, the duvet draped at the end of the bed. There on the floor was a stale pack of rollies, one half stubbed out and laying on the bedside table. Sebastian’s blood speckled across the walls and floor made Jim well up and after smoking the half cigarette that last touched Seb’s lips Jim flopped onto the bed and cried, wholeheartedly, for the linens on the bed had held Sebastian’s sweat and cologne from the very night as if they loved him just as much as Jim had.   
Pathetic was the word Jim would’ve called himself, for who would be this stupid over someone so much like a vapour, here and gone in an instant, yet he cried until his eyes were crimson and there were no tears left, until the ache in his throat became some block for his lungs, until he was simply staring out the window into the moonlight, thoughts running softly as he bargained for Sebastian Moran to be alive. Jim laid there for what felt like days until he drifted into a sleep only to be woken up in strong arms that only could be described as Seb.  
“I’m so sorry Jim,” Sebastian smiled weakly, eyes caught up from years of exhaustion.  
And in that moment Jim’s endless white noise subsided, caught up in the melody that was Sebastian’s words, his heartbeat, and the sound of his full breathing. No questions could be asked or answered and as Jim clutched Sebastian’s dirty and ripped uniform, he agreed from years earlier, “I love you too.”


End file.
